Up at the crack of dawn!

 Mark called me from the basement (where he spends most of his time and sleeps) at 5:40 a.m. to tell me to call 911 - he said he couldn't breath.  To me, he sounded exactly like he always does, but apparently it was worse.  I asked if he could get upstairs so I could take him to the ER and he said no.  I don't think it was about his ability to GET up the stairs but about his ability to put on his gel liner so he could get into his prosthetic leg.  His gel liner is new, and with his bad hand, it's quite a chore to get it turned inside out so he can apply it - even I struggle with it.  So I called 911 and 6 firemen/EMTs showed up, went down and gave him a breathing treatment and got him comfortable enough that they didn't take him away. I think the time is quickly approaching that he needs to be on oxygen, which scares me with his smoking...  Of course, on the up side, if he has an oxygen tank, the rule will be to never, ever take it into the bathroom, which is the only place I allow him to smoke in the house.  If he blows up my house, he better just hope he dies in the explosion and that I don't die with him because if I do, I'll go kick his ass on the other side!

Today, I plan to go to an Abe meeting.  I really need it... we haven't been to very many in the past year with Covid.  We met outside last late summer/fall, so we went to some of those.  We didn't go through the winter when they were meeting at a coffee house - didn't want to wear a mask while trying to chat and didn't want the exposure.  They've started back up, but they've been meeting at a park again, and that just doesn't work so much for Mom with her intestinal issues.  Well, Tim finally decided to schedule one at a Panera to accommodate Mom, so we're going today.  At least I HOPE I can still go!  I'll go as long as Mark seems ok, but I will leave the back door unlocked in case he needs to call 911 while I'm gone.  I really, REALLY need to be around some serious positivity!

Ok, to make me smile, here are some funny pictures!  First, a car I pulled up behind at Walgreens the other day...

I see plenty of the "666" license plates, but I thought this one was particularly funny because I see "What the hell" or "Way to hell" in the letters!!

I got these two funnies off FB recently, and can definitely relate to both of them!

The first one is SO how I feel when I see photos of Marco's Hoyas!  I send him a cutting off one of mine and within a year, it's bigger then my 10-year-old plant, and it pumps out flowers like a machine gun!  He's experiencing that right now with a "cutting" off my inconspicua.  It's been covered with flowers while mine is just sitting there, not really even growing right now.  Mine hangs in the bathroom and gets strong reflective light and will produce a flower or two several times a year, and it tends to grow in little spurts.  But down there it is apparently in its element!  I can see why he puts up with the heat and humidity!

And the cartoon - yep, just change the word "garden" to "greenhouse" and you got me!  Yesterday, I spent the day watching recorded episodes of Hawaii 5-O and at each commercial, I'd go spend a few minutes cleaning in the GH.  I think I mentioned in a previous post that I put one of my shelves out in the back yard to give me room to clean the nooks and crannies in the GH this year. It's divided into 9 window sections and I'm doing one section at a time.  And yes, it's THAT dirty!  I worked on the 2nd section yesterday.  It's a grimy job!  But when I get done with a section, it looks so nice.  This fall, I'll hire someone to come wash all the outside windows.  I used to have an extension ladder AND the balls to go up and wash the roof windows.  I haven't been able to do that in years (not to mention that the ladder got stolen some years back...)

Here is a photo I took of Cleo doing her thing on the door top:

She's such a brave little girl!  I came home to her brother limping around last week and I suspect that he finally tried to get up there and either missed, or maybe he made it and then tried to jump down all the way from up there.  She gets up there by jumping onto the bookcase (that's built-in between living and dining rooms) and then to the door and back down the same way.  He may have thought he could come straight down to the floor... boys just aren't as smart as girls!  LOL!

Blooming today...  for the last several mornings, when I get up and go to the kitchen, my routine is to do the last of the dishes from the night before and as I stand at the sink, I'm bombarded with the sweet scent of a blooming Hoya - it's krohniana, the one growing in the seashell in the west window to the left of the sink.  Of course, it's closely related to lacunosa, so it's one of the sweetest smells in the Hoya world!  Very nice...

There's actually two open.  For some reason, this one blooms easier than my big mama plant!

Bicknellii has the one bloom that has been going strong for I'd guess at least two weeks!  I can't think of another Hoya whose blooms last so long...

 

That's the Vanilla orchid in front of it.  I wish THAT would bloom for me!

And opening today is my first bloom on 'Dapple Grey', one I got from Marco.  This has been a great grower for me, though I'm sure it's just another clone of carnosa.  But plain carnosa refuses to bloom for me.  I can remember once probably 20 years ago that I got a bloom or two off of carnosa.  Now if I take cuttings of reverted vines off of 'Krimson Princess', they usually bloom within a few years.  But my original carnosa, which is another reboot, sooo rarely blooms...  Here's the DG...

I'll take another pic when it fully opens.

I took down merredithii x crassicaulis to water today.  I just love the leaves on this one...

The veins are so prominent!  The down side of this one is that the tips brown easily, so eventually, I have to snip them flat and it takes away some of the beauty.  I wonder if it would help to move it back to the GH...now it grows in my bedroom.

And one last observation before I get my day started... I put the finlaysonii that was in the sunroom out in the GH a few days ago.  I notice that it's budding up, whereas the one that's been in the GH for several years is not!  Isn't that interesting... maybe it doesn't have everything to do with how much light they get!  It's actually got several (I counted 5) peduncles budding on the same vine!